This is a creative writing exercise exploring the perspective of Mansok’s wife in Land of Exile. It is based on the literary analysis piece I did on sexuality and power.
“You slut! You filthy slut!” In the midst of the throes of pleasure, Chomnye hears a familiar voice, cry out. Her husband.
Before she can process the unfolding event, she hears a sickening crack. A thud. A blood-curdling scream. With a ringing buzz filling her ears, she backs into the corner, pins and needles stabbing at her numbing limbs. Her husband stalks toward her like a predator on the hunt. His chest rises and falls rapidly, his ragged breath filling the room with sticky, oppressive anger.
“Don’t—please!” She hears a voice pleading for mercy—no, it is her own. She has to get away. Run. A sharp pain in her stomach. No, the baby! She cries out, collapsing on the floor, her hands brought up protectively to soothe the life within her womb.
Time slows and stretches into sap.
Chomnye had always been considered the flower of her village, and it did not take her long to learn her place after maturing into her identity.
Her brother, despite his low-class status, had gained the favor of a local yangban’s son, and thus seized the opportunity to learn to read. Fascinated by the letters’ graceful curves on the page, she implored her father to allow her to attend lessons, too. That request earned her a brutal lashing. Her father brandished a wooden spoon as a makeshift weapon of destruction. “What use is it for a girl to learn to read?” he had questioned indignantly. “Your job is to stay quiet and keep your eyes lowered. You’re going to be a good wife one day and bring honor to the family, you hear me?”
Every time she spoke up or showed her excitement, she was met with icy glares from her older relatives. Slowly, the mischievous glint in her eyes disappeared, and she retreated further into herself. Maybe this is what it’s like to come of age, she thought. You turn inside out, then back again, until you don’t know where the right side is anymore. This is the differentiating factor between a child and adult. This is what it means to become a woman.
White petals peek out as the budding rose begins to unfurl.
After a certain point, she never asked for anything, nor expressed herself openly, lest she sully the family name with her insolence. Without knowing when, a mask had been permanently welded to her face. Smiles, pleasantries, appeasement. Anxiety gnawed at her insides like an incessant pest, but she said nothing.
She knew her parents couldn’t wait for her to be married off, to finally get her off their hands. If she had it her way, she would fall in love with a man akin to the Silla Hwarang. But that was just a daydream to pass the time.
Time wore on, and her dreams faded into the fabric of daily survival. Her days became predictable, shaped by duty and silence, each indistinguishable from the next. She learned to fold her hopes into corners of her mind no one could reach. Yet a quiet yearning stirred deep within. She did not want just love. Love was never of consequence. No, she wanted evidence that she was alive. She had lived behind a mask for so long that she began to doubt her own existence.
Then, her parents introduced her to Mansok, and she banished her feelings to her unconscious mind. She was happy at first—he was the epitome of manliness. Headstrong with a hot temper, but with a soft side, too.
The sleeping bud bursts into bloom.
Her newly-wed happiness didn’t last. A happy marriage was only reserved for fairytales, after all. At times, she felt like a doll trapped in her little play house, where all she had to do was satisfy her husband with labor, sweetness, and sensuality. But, at some point, even that wasn’t enough, and she found herself on the receiving end of senseless beatings, for many of which she couldn’t pinpoint the catalyst no matter how hard she wracked her brain.
There were moments where Mansok’s rage would soften. His fury-clouded eyes would clear, revealing tenderness she once hoped to know. But those moments vanished as quickly as jangma rain passes, leaving behind only bruises and self-loathing. The man she married was also a prisoner, chained by his own demons and indignation toward an unjust society. Yet his inner turmoil became her burden to bear, a persistent ghost that made it hard to even breathe.
Was her life destined to be endless misery?
Talks of revolution began to stir among the lower class. At first, she paid them no mind, not wanting to invite trouble into the home. Yet as the revolutionary fervor swelled, her husband became involved, and she could no longer maintain her chosen state of ignorance. The more she heard, the more she was intrigued. It was not long before she was introduced to the Alliance of Democratic Women. For so long, she was conditioned into demure obedience, and yet, women standing near the helm of politics…? She started attending meetings. One thing led to another and, before she knew it, she bore the responsibility of the organization’s head.
The power sent a thrill up her spine that penetrated into the core of her being. Her dormant hunger for knowledge and power resurfaced. Each gesture of respect toward her set off a chain reaction of tingling stars bursting in her chest. The way her comrades deferred to her, the way they leaned in when she spoke, sparked a strange satisfaction she had never known. Authority had a scent, a weight, a magnetism. And she had found her own rhythm the moment she was dragged onto the dance floor. Each expression of gratitude toward her made flowers bloom wildly in her throat. Tears threatened to spill over as she felt real for the first time in her life. She had been hidden away in a corner for so long, her soul gathering dust, all due to her unfortunate fate of having been born a woman from a poor family. Now that she felt the first rays of light that she had almost forgotten existed, she craved more and more. She was addicted to the thrill of climbing higher than anyone else, of shining brighter, and of proving everyone who had ever known her wrong.
Red veins creep up the pristine petals of the rose, bleeding into their soft whiteness.
As she worked, she naturally came in contact with People’s Army officials. Over time, she caught the eye of the commander himself. She thought nothing of his flirtation at first. But his persistent efforts became intoxicating. She couldn’t get enough. The commander was naturally efficient, domineering, and confident—everything her husband was not, with his tiger-baiting madness and rash snap judgments. Every time she reciprocated the commander’s playful advances, she felt a heady buzz that she just could not get enough of.
When she went to bed with him, she felt like the most powerful woman in the world. Each movement unraveled the knots of spite buried deep in her guts, freeing her from the shackles that chained her to her wretched fate. Slyly turning down Mansok’s bedtime requests made her as smug as a cunning general winning a meticulously-planned battle. She became a commander at the helm of a battleship, the battleship that was her own body. Her time was almost up, and she wanted to savor every last drop of her freedom. She knew she was pregnant with Mansok’s child, and a deep fear seized her at the thought of once again being chained to a role she never asked for.
At times, she wondered if the power she felt with the commander was truly hers or just borrowed, metered control granted by a man infatuated with the way she rebelled. She wielded it as if it were her own nonetheless.
When exactly had her body stopped belonging to her? Was it the moment her father lifted that wooden spoon, or was it when her wedding night passed like a business transaction, sealed with her husband’s indifference and lacking sense of responsibility? No matter when, she had become a vessel of duty, of obedience, and of a boiling hatred threatening to spill through the cracks of her facade. But even now, through fear and through pain, she felt alive. If only for a moment, the choice was hers, no matter how hard others may frown upon it later.
“No! You bastard!” she hears Mansok exclaim in disbelief through gritted teeth. Some scuffling, then the wretched scraping of heavy metal against the hard earth. A staccato burst. Gurgling, then silence, save for the uneven breath of a raging beast.
She barely registers the sounds around her as she crawls desperately to escape. Despite the waves of fear overtaking her, she finds that she has no room for regrets. So this was her end—not as a wife, not as a daughter, but as a single thread plucked from the tapestry of revolution. She could live with that.
Another staccato burst. Blood red petals scatter as the gunpowder settles.